Sunday, May 24, 2009

Cold Turkey

First of all, I want to brag a little and say that I breastfed Harry up to 12 months and 2 days of age, totally fulfilling my own personal goal and meeting the AAP's suggestion "that breastfeeding continue for at least 12 months." It was something that I (and Kevin, too) decided was important before Harry was even born, and if you know me at all you probably heard about the trials and challenges breastfeeding presented in the first couple of weeks.

Why 12 months and 2 days, you ask? Why cold turkey? I was put on a medication on Friday afternoon that was borderline risky for Harry, so obviously I decided to stop nursing. I was not aware of the potential risk until literally the moment I was given the medication, so my plans for a gentle weaning, reducing one feeding every week or two over the next month, flew out the window.

So now there is a new challenge: getting Harry to drink cow's milk. He's not crazy about it, and we've already (in two days!) had to get a little creative. We've tried the old standard of mixing breast milk with cow's milk, but since I only had about a day's work of milk in the freezer, this is no longer an option. We've tried waiting until he's really, really hungry. We've tried adding Ovaltineto his bottle.

And speaking of bottles, we've also tried offering the milk via bottle, sippy, and juice glass, just in case it wasn't contents but container that was bothering Harry. And then there was the method this morning, which was to give Harry as many Cheerios as he wanted and then waited for him to start looking around for his water. . . which had mysteriously disappeared. . . and had even more mysteriously been replaced with milk. Hmmm. Curious.

a woman i used to babysit for used mostly goat's milk with a bit of cow's milk and slowly transitioned to just cow's. it's a bit more expensive, but i guess it's a lot easier on baby's stomach--which could possibly make this switch a lot easier on your life, too:)